By Adeola Badru, Ibadan

Health workers in Ibadan, Oyo State capital have been told to be vegilant in order to properly diagnose asthma from other ailments.

A health initiative organisation, Hacey in collaboration with Access Corporation, yesterday brought asthma outreach to health workers in Ibadan South East Local Government Area of the state to reduce the prevalence of the disease among community members.

A resource person for the outreach, Dr. Adetunji Ademola, said that asthma can be properly managed if one understands the symptoms that come with it.

He said: “If you find someone that is unconscious and can’t breathe very well, I think the next thing the person should do is to go to the hospital where appropriate care which include giving some drugs and inhaler and other things can be administered on the patient.”

“There are some efforts that have been made to effectively provide adequate care for asthmatic patients.”

“There are drugs that ashmatic patients will need that are available, even in Primary Healthcare Centres, PHCs.”

“PHCs have drugs asthmatic patients can use. It is important that asthmatic patients take their reliever which is inhaler with them at all times, because who knows when the next attack is going to happen and it might be life-threatening.”

“Asthmatic patients should be persons that are very vigilant about their health; also care about staying away from allergies that could precipitate the attack.”

“And it’s important asthmatic patients see their doctors regularly to ensure that they are properly managed. Symptoms of asthmatic attack do not come up frequently.”

“And also for health care practitioners, they need to be very vigilant because some ailments look like asthma and they are not asthma. So, when we see things that look like asthma, we give prompt treatment to reverse the possibility of life-threatening cases or death.”

Also speaking, the representative of Hacey, Tomilola Akinpelu, said the training was organised for health workers on asthma care, asthma relief, and education project to reduce the prevalence of asthma in communities.

She said the training was conducted in three states, Oyo, Lagos, Ebonyi a d Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

“We have noticed so many people have have asthma and they do not even know; and we have lost so many lives to asthma.

“And then, we know that health workers are the first people asthmatic patients run to, this is why we organised the training so that once a patient with asthma comes to them, they will know how to treat them, how to take care of them, how to manage such cases.”

“We just need to keep keep bringing up programmes like this to educate more people and I know that with the help the government, we would achieve more.”

In her remark, the Officer in charge of Orayan Primary Healthcare, Adebumi Aremu, commended the Hacey and said the training which was educative will be impactful on their practices.

“Its an educative training and it will have good impacts on our practices in the PHCs, especially. I love it and I want more of it,” she stated.